Number of Uninsured May Be Overstated, Studies Suggest -LAT

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON — The number of Americans without health insurance — one of the most watched and worrisome indicators of economic well-being — may be overstated by as much as 20%, according to research conducted for the government.
...
Politically, "there would be a lot less interest in dealing with the uninsured if it turned out there weren't so many," said Joseph Antos, a health policy analyst with the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington. "There would be accusations that was rigging the numbers to make a serious problem go away."
...
How quickly critics may pounce on anything suggesting insensitivity on the coverage issue was illustrated by the reaction of a prominent economist. Uwe Reinhardt of Princeton University, a specialist on healthcare issues, said the administration's decision to commission the research showed that it was worrying more about counting the uninsured than about helping them.
...
The push to reassess the number of people lacking health insurance came from Michael O'Grady, a top health economist in the Bush administration. As assistant secretary for planning and evaluation in the Health and Human Services Department, he secured funding for two separate studies and is encouraging government statisticians to work out the discrepancies.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-uninsured26apr26,0,167088.story?coll=la-home-nation

[Avalux]

1. Whatever

I want to know the number of UNDERinsured. You know, those of us who work hard and have insurance but it's shit.

[electricray]

7. How about the number of people

with COBRA benefits that are about to expire. Or the people who have insurance but can't even afford the co-pay to go to the doctor when they need it. I know people who are stuck in dead-end jobs because they need the benefits for their diabetic child. This is a f*cked up article regardless of the validity. All it does is attempt to tell everyone that there really isn't a problem, but if you ask me, 32 million uninsured is still ridiculously unacceptable in a country that was on the verge of a luxury economy less than a decade ago.

[jojo54]

9. electricray, you nailed it!

This article is bullcrap, just like the unemployment numbers they try passing us - they won't tell us how many unemployed have NO MORE benefits, so they're tossed off the list, like a used tissue.

[MountainLaurel]

34. You've got it

And let's not forget all the people who can't leave their current jobs because they had a serious condition like cancer or clinical depression and a new employer will never insure them because of it.

[Warpy]

2. Only if you Enron those numbers

Personally, I think it may be UNDERstated, but I live in one of the states with the largest number of uninsured people; it's also a state with 96% of insurance plans HMOs. And yes, I think the two statistics have a LOT to do with each other.

[aquart]

3. Research conducted by WHOM?

It couldn't possibly be a conservative think tank?

And..."discrepancies"? Meaning the numbers they got aren't the numbers he wants?

[OzarkDem]

32. With board members from insurance companies

http://www.aei.org/about/filter.,contentID.20038142214500073/default.asp

[cornermouse]

4. And the lies continue.

Ain't nuthin wrong with the U.S., no sirree. Nothing to see here. Just keep moving.

[MisterP]

5. heck, a Reagan-administration study "showed" that there was no conclusive

evidence of hungry children in the U.S.

[AtLiberty]

6. The number is escalating with all these Medicaid cuts, too...

Also doesn't address the millions who are clinging to what insurance they do have by their fingernails or those who will lose it in the near future as insurance rates continue to rise.

We can't let this BS take hold...

[wellst0nev0ter]

8. I Didn't Need To Read Any Further When I Saw This Line

"...said Joseph Antos, a health policy analyst with the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington."

Anything from an institute that hires Charles "What's a Statistical Regression?" Murray, Dinesh "Civil Rights Acts R Outdated" D'Souza and John "How Can I Fake A Statistical Regression?" Lott is pretty much guaranteed toilet-paper material.


Barely.

[Demeter]

10. Understated, Definitely--Overstated--Not on Our Lives!

They can't count anything accurately in this benighted age, because the truth would set them on the unemployment line and out of power.

My ancestors didn't leave Poland to live and reaise progeny in a Third World country.

[shanti]

20. yes, a third world country

apparently, we have "too much", so they are taking it away. we're turning into another mexico.

[ixion]

11. key phrase: "as much as"

which means that SOME models gave this result, but others DID NOT, and gave a smaller percentage (or a negative one). But because ONE MODEL returned this result, they can make this claim and it's not technically a lie, although it's not technically correct, either. :crazy:

[fasttense]

12. And what about those companies who offer health insurance their

employees can't afford, like Wal-Mart? Most of Wall-Mart's employees are on Medicare.

[applegrove]

13. Just count the number of bankrupcies and extrapolate from that! n/t

[Beetwasher]

14. Brought To You By The Same People Who Give Us The Terror Attack Statistics

and WMD evidence.

[area51]

15. any lie

The nazi party will tell any lie to keep people from realizing (1) how much better people in other industrialized countries have it (re: healthcare), and (2) that we need single-payer healthcare & we need it now. I think Kucinich has said that we already pay for single-payer in tax $; we're just not getting it.


-------------
"Prosperity is just around the corner." — Herbert Hoover
"The economy has turned a corner." — GW Bush

Herbert Hoover = GW Bush

Neither man cared about the Depression their economic policies created.

[Zorra]

16. More statistics altered to suit Bush's purposes. More republican lies to

make them look better.

Don't like the numbers? Just Enron 'em.

[prairierose]

17. And why should we believe any study....

commissioned by this administration, every one is commissioned with an agenda in mind. The results are preordained just as the propaganda was commissioned from various reporters and those stories were preordained. Nothing that comes from this administration or one of its think tanks is worth the paper it's printed on.

I can't even express the anger and contempt that I feel each and every time I see another set of statistics from this government that denigrates the pain that people live with every day because we are the only industrialized nation in the world that does not provide universal health care.



:nuke:

[KittyWampus]

18. The American Enterprise Institute? Do They Think We're STUPID?

I'm sure they massaged all KINDS of numbers to get 20% less.

[shanti]

19. pile it on, chimpster!

they are trying to bury us in it. black is white with this gang, so you can bet your azz that the opposite of this is true - it's being UNderstated by 20 percent!

[AlCzervik]

21. ok just like the umemployment rate is lower because when peoples benifits

exhausted they aren't on the rolls anymore.

[dweller]

22. NPR's ON POINT this evening aired

The New American Caste System
Forty-million Americans have no health insurance.
Millions more are one pink slip away from losing
coverage. The reasons are as diverse as the
people themselves. But what is clear is that the
current healthcare system leaves everyone at risk
and it doesn't take much to be pushed over the
edge.

In a new book, authors Susan Starr Sered and
Rushika Fernadapulle from Harvard University argue the link between health insurance
and employment is creating a new caste of the ill, infirm, and marginally-employed.

Hear a conversation about the new faces of the uninsured in America.

http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2005/04/20050426_b_main.asp

about the authors: Uninsured in America : Life and Death in the Land of Opportunity
Susan Starr Sered is Research Director of the Religion, Health, and Healing Initiative at the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard
University. She is the author of What Makes Women Sick? Militarism, Maternity and Modesty in Israeli Society (2000) and Priestess, Mother, Sacred
Sister: Religions Dominated by Women (1994). Rushika Fernandopulle is Executive Director of the Harvard Interfaculty Program for Health Systems
Improvement and the author of Health Care Policy (1995).

editorial description of Uninsured in America : Life and Death in the Land of Opportunity:
From Booklist
Sered, an anthropologist, and Fernandopulle, a doctor specializing in public-health policy, provide a troubling look at Americans without health
insurance, some of whom must choose between food and medical treatment. They interviewed more than 120 uninsured Americans in Texas,
Mississippi, Idaho, Illinois, and Massachusetts as well as physicians, administrators, and health-policy officials. The result is a collection of
heartrending stories of the "caste of the ill, the infirm, and the marginally employed." The authors describe the "death spiral" of people who lack
insurance for myriad reasons--including self-employment and divorce--and whose illnesses cannot be adequately treated. Their medical conditions
inevitably deteriorate--small tumors metastasize, diabetes leads to amputation or dialysis treatments--increasing both the costs and the dire
consequences. Once individuals are caught in the death spiral, they are unlikely to find a way out. The ultimate impact of this shocking crisis is felt
by all Americans in the form of higher health-care costs and more antibiotic-resistant bacteria as conditions go untreated. This is a stark and
disturbing book. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

http://www.medical-research-books.com/mrb-books-reviewed/0520244427.html

______________________________________________________________


face it friends, it's no longer a class war, it's the new american caste system.

dp

[Media_Lies_Daily]

23. What a bunch of crap.

[Daphne08]

24. 36 million or 45 million... What's the damn difference?

This is America and even ONE person uninsured (and denied the medical care they need) is one person too many!

[The_Casual_Observer]

25. Don't like the numbers? Then, change the numbers!

"Facts are stupid things"

[Javaman]

26. If you don't count the working poor then..

they are right on the money...assholes

[0rganism]

27. Last "study" I saw on the topic was direct from US CENSUS DATA

If Michael O'Grady wants to team up with the AEI to tell us how the US CENSUS BUREAU is cooking the books because they hate America or whatever, that's a-okay by me. Let them go for it. At this point, I just kick back and watch in bemusement. I'm getting curious to see how much garbage the American Idiots will swallow from the BFEE, it's like a large-scale reality show.

Meanwhile, they can suck on a bit of writing I did about a year ago:
---
A while back I read a Letter to the Editor from a Joplin, MO paper claiming that a recent statistic concerning 45 million uninsured Americans in 2003 was bogus. According to this letter, the survey that produced this statistic used a flawed methodology, counting anyone who had been uncovered for *part* of the year as uninsured -- even if only for a single day. The letter contended that there could be as few as 2 million Americans legitimately without insurance for the entire year, largely through their own unwise choices.

My usual skepticism kicked in, and I laughed it off as delusional bullshit.

Then, a few days later, I heard a wingnut on a nationally-syndicated talk show calling in to make the same point, claiming under 5 million Americans were without health care the entire year. Now my ears pricked up, because you don't get that kind of specific delusional bullshit from disparate sources unless there's a larger movement behind spreading the word. Once might be a fluke, but twice is the result of a coordinated operation. Three times is the beginning of a media campaign. Four times or more, and it's a major propaganda talking point.

So, assuming that there was at least some coordination behind this interpretation of the statistic, I went and did a little homework. It turns out that the dastardly liberal propaganda mill pushing this "horribly flawed" study is called the US Census Bureau. I recommend a visit to their commie-lovin' web page:

http://www.census.gov/

In August of 2004, they released the compiled results study called "Income,Poverty,and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States:2003". You can download the study in PDF here:

http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/p60-226.pdf

A quick review shows that the study is, indeed, making the claim that 45 MILLION people were uninsured in 2003. This is up 1.4 MILLION from 2002, and represents 16% of the population overall. 16% is a big claim, really. If 16% of the working population called in sick on a given day, you can bet the stock market would notice. If 16% of the words in this story were misspelled, you'd have a helluva time reading it. So 16% of Americans lacking health coverage is not an ignorable amount.

As such you can see why the cheap labor republicans have an interest in squashing this down by an order of magnitude. If they can convince the public that "98% of the population is insured most of the time and 84% are insured all of the time," then the question of national health care policy reform totally disappears from the political radar screen. It's moot, it's useless, it's barely relevant compared to our other concerns. We should talk about capping medical malpractice lawsuits to lower premiums instead of restructuring the whole system to cover the uninsured, right?

WRONG. As it turns out, this idea they're pushing is utterly, completely, absolutely 100% FALSE. Worse yet, it actually REVERSES the definition used by the study, insofar as a person who is covered for even PART of the year is counted as "insured".

The US CENSUS report in question is very specific about the methodology. Quoting,

"People are considered 'insured' if they were covered by any type of health insurance for part or all of the previous year,and they are considered 'uninsured' if they were not covered by any type of health insurance at any time in that year."
(Income,Poverty,and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States:2003, page 14, subsection "What is Health Insurance Coverage?", 1st paragraph)

4/26/05 NOTE: Upon reviewing the box on p. 14 in the online document, I notice that IT HAS BEEN BACK-ANNOTATED SINCE ORIGINAL PUBLICATION TO INCLUDE THIS TALKING POINT!!!! The depths to which these assholes will sink to push their agenda are unfathomable. However, the original definition still stands, and the original interpretation of the data is still valid, and the 2nd paragraph is now wildly inconsistent with the first. The HHS dept. has just fucked over a publication of the Census Bureau.

Now the way the cheap labor republicans are abusing this is fairly obvious, upon examination. They look at the second part of the definition, and say, "uninsured people were not covered by any type of health insurance at any time in 2003, well that could be construed to mean at least one day." No. That's not how the definition works. IF that were the case, people receiving coverage for part of the year would be reported as both "insured" and "uninsured", and the numbers wouldn't add up for the total population -- which they do. The correct way to read the definition is

{insured} = {covered by any type of health insurance for any time in 2003}
{uninsured} = not {insured} = not {covered by any type of health insurance for any time in 2003}

It's a very simple form of negation, which is unfortunately grammatically ambiguous when quoted out of context. Of course, the rightwingers won't mention the first part of the definition, which explains what an insured person is, because that immediately puts a whole mess of wobble in their spin.

We can safely conclude two things from this bit of research:

1. The problem of reliable health insurance extends far beyond the 45 Million Americans without any at all; an unknown number of respondants to this survey could have been covered for as little as *one day* in 2003 by *any* policy, public or private, and counted as completely insured. 45 Million is essentially the BEST CASE scenario.

2. The cheap labor republicans WILL manipulate words and take things out of context to the point where a simple census statistic is reversed to spread a misconception concerning the poor and downtrodden. They WILL resort to lying to understate the misfortune of their fellow Americans in order to live in their happy bushworld of make believe.

If you see, hear, or smell anyone spreading this crap, please don't hesitate to call them on it. Bet them a $100 donation from the loser to the winner's choice of soft money groups or causes that the census study says exactly the opposite of what they're claiming it does. Then pull up the Census study, head straight to page 14, and collect.
---

[wellst0nev0ter]

29. Thanx For Doing The Heavy Lifting So I Don't Have To

Me, I just treat reich-wing spin as the white noise that it is and just assume it's bullshit. I used to be a research wonk, but with my realization that not caring about the facts can still be classified "telling the truth" in this Orwellian day in age, I just threw up my arms in defeat.

But still, well done :toast: :yourock:

[Lars39]

28. TN just added over 300,000 people to that number.

[AndyTiedye]

30. Some of them Got Sick and Died

But others are losing their health insurance to take their place.

[ninkasi]

31. They just change statistics they don't like

There are way, way too many uninsured/under insured people in this country. The current administration has absolutely no interest in solving the problem, so they just issue phoney studies to give the numbers they want.

I know too many people myself who are without insurance, and I think everybody on DU does, too. When homeless shelters and food banks keep saying that demand for their services is getting higher and higher, it stands to reason that one reason for this increased demand is unemployment. No job, no insurance.

Many companies now only hire "part time", let them work 35 hours a week, and avoid having to pay benefits. All of this brought to a duped
American public by soulless neocons, and wing nut fundies. This country is in a very, very real mess, and I only hope that we can win enough seats in 2006, and the presidency in 2008 and try to reverse the worst of the damage.

[salin]

33. PAY Attention to the TIMING of this - per bush's tax policy group

announcement over the weekend... pushing for "simplifying" the tax code by getting rid of tax credits and incentives for middle and working classes. One of the biggest bombs that they are pushing reads to be insane in terms of timing.... and voila a report comes to pave the selling of it.

They want to end tax credits/breaks for companies that provide health insurance to employees. Now, when we know that there is a growing number of uninsured, and we know that over the past five years the annual increases in health insurance coverage have been huge (some years, I believe, may have seen double digit percentage increases), it seems insane policy wise to push this. But wait - look - there aren't so many uninsured in the first place... so says the govt (which has been proven to "use" its studies and twist them to push policy rather than to provide data to inform policies).

[raccoon]

35. What an absolute crock.

This kind of b.s. really pisses me off.

At my workplace, 50% of the employees are part-time, no benefits, no insurance, no nothing.

I know/have known lots of people without medical insurance. I was without for years.

This is just such a big, big lie. THese neocon, Republicans, s.o.b.s, whatever, just think they can say black is white, and that's all there is to it.

Who was it said, Figures don't lie, but liars can figure?